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Warship
|upkeep_cost = |num_figures = |moves = |melee = |ranged = |defense = |resist = |hits = |abilities = Ranged Attack x99, Transport 3 Long Range }} The Warship is a type of Normal Unit that can be created in Barbarian, High Men, and Orc Towns containing a Maritime Guild. As its name implies, the Warship is a built-for-combat, advanced sailing vessel, that is not only among the fastest units in the game, but also has nearly unlimited ammunition for its Ranged Attacks, and can even transport up to 3 units across Oceans. However, the Warship is incapable of moving on land by default. The Warship has a Construction Cost of , and requires a hefty Upkeep Cost of and to maintain. Failure to pay these costs will result in the unit being disbanded automatically. This can potentially be dangerous, since any units being transported by the Warship at the time may end up drowning! Unit Properties Physical Description The Warship is a true predator of the high seas. It is a large ocean-faring vessel with a square-rigged sail configuration, employing talented navigators from a Town's Maritime Guild. It is remarkably fast, and carries a heavy shipboard armament, rendering it almost completely safe from smaller ships. Its crew is trained in both operating its long range catapult and close quarter fighting. The belly of the ship is mostly filled with equipment and bunks for the crew, but still has enough space to fit three land units for quick overseas transport. The Warship is a . Attack Properties The Warship is primarily a Ranged Attack unit - the only one in the game that has virtually unlimited ammunition. Apart from a specific scenario involving the combination of the spells and , the Warship can never run out of shots. It may keep using its throughout an entire battle, unlike any other unit with a non-short Ranged Attack of any kind. In addition, this Attack Type is generally harder to defend against than either or , making the Warship one of the best ranged units in the game. The Warship's base Ranged Attack Strength is , which means that it can deliver a formidable points of "raw" per shot, on average. Although do suffer from distance penalties , the Warship also possesses the Long Range trait, limiting this to at most . Therefore, while the average "raw" output of these Ranged Attacks does drop down to if the target is at least 3 tiles away from the Warship, it will not decrease any further over larger distances. This attack also improves with . At the level, the maximum normally attainable, it will deliver an average of and points of "raw" at short and long ranges respectively. The Warship's Melee Attack is similarly impressive. The unit has a Melee Strength of , with an average "raw" output of - matching that of a close range shot. This attack gets better with as well, and will deal an average of points of "raw" at the level. However, it's worth noting that the Warship can almost never actually use this attack voluntarily. Instead, it will typically only be utilized for Counter Attacks. This is due to the way the game chooses which Attack Type is performed against an adjacent target, as in the case of the Warship, this will usually be its . Defensive Properties The Warship is exceptionally sturdy, possessing - one of the highest of all units; along with a Defense score of . It can block about points from Conventional Damage attacks, on average. On the other hand, while not too low, the Warship's Resistance score is not all that impressive either. Its is enough for a fair chance at avoiding the majority of Unit Curses and combat maledictions, but will not offer consistent protection. All three of these statistics improve with however, and the Warship can become immune to at least the weaker negative effects at the highest levels. Other Properties The Warship is one of the fastest units in the game with its base Movement Allowance of , although it has no native ability to traverse solid ground, and must stick to Ocean and Shore tiles. It can also Transport up to 3 units over water, in addition to any number of Heroes. However, should a Warship be destroyed while carrying such units, its passengers will drown and be lost along with it. The speed of any army containing a Warship will typically be determined by that of the Warship. This is because transport ships, in general, override the Movement Allowance of the stack they are in. This applies not only to the units being carried by them, but also to any or ones moving along with the ships. For example, a single Warship can enable an entire stack of Lizardmen infantry to trail alongside it at a rate of , or even speed up Draconians trying to cross a body of water. Unfortunately, some problems may arise when multiple ships are grouped together due to inconsistencies in how the official game determines both Movement Allowance and carrying capacity. For the former, an incorrect code break causes the speed of any stack containing a transport unit to be set to that of the first such unit found - usually the one created the earliest. If that is a Trireme for example, which only moves at , then that is what the stack's speed is going to be. However, if it's a Warship, then as long as the group doesn't stop until it has moved 4 tiles, slower ships can actually move along with it. On the other hand, if the group is moved step by step, then they won't be able to keep up. For carrying capacity, another bug causes every ship after the first to count as a land unit, meaning that all but one of them will have their capacity reduced by one when moving as a stack. As a result, a pair of Warships can only carry 3 + 2 = 5 units instead of the expected 6. The unofficial patches, starting with Insecticide, circumvent this problem by removing transport capacity altogether, allowing any ship to carry a full stack of units instead. Basic Strategy The Warship's speed, Attack Strength, and survivability are all quite impressive. Together with its near-unlimited ammo capacity, they make it one of the best Ranged Attack units in the game. There are some downsides though, with the most obvious one being the vessel's inability to move over land. Warships are not universally available either. Only Barbarians, High Men, and Orcs can build them, and any Town hoping to construct one needs to be adjacent to a Shore tile and must, at some point, have a Forest or in its catchment area. These are required to build the Shipwrights' Guild and Sawmill respectively, both of which are prerequisites for constructing the Maritime Guild necessary for creating Warships. s can cross land which is narrow diagonally.]] Unlike the Trireme or the Galley, the Warship is primarily a combat vessel. Nonetheless, it also has a Transport capacity of 3. While the Galley's is still higher though, in many cases, the superior attributes of the Warship can more than make up for this difference, effectively rendering both smaller ships obsolete. Because it is faster than any or -based unit, and even most ones, the Warship can be useful for speeding armies even in situations that do not involve crossing over to a different continent. For instance, it can ferry land units along a shoreline, or across a bay, allowing them to reach their destination much quicker than they would otherwise, especially if the land route has rough terrain. In the case of infantry units, the Warship's is twice as fast as traveling on regular, non-enchanted Roads and, as mentioned above, even and units can benefit from moving together with one. When idle, Warships can also make decent scouts thanks to their speed. However, they still fall behind overall because of their high Upkeep Cost and inability to move on land. Regardless, if they are not expected to have to intercept enemy ships, ferry units, or defend other transports for some time, it may be better to send them to explore the high seas instead of keeping them on patrol or dismissing them. Their movement limitation can be alleviated somewhat by keeping a cheap land unit on board that can disembark if a large island or continent is discovered. Although it is important to remember that ships destroyed while carrying units will also cause those units to drown, this is actually not that big of an issue in the latest official version of the game. One of the major shortcomings of the original AI is its inability to coordinate naval warfare, or even target water-borne enemy armies with its own. As a result, unless the player attacks with a loaded transport, their ships will generally only come under assault by accident, if they happen to be on the pre-set path of an AI force. However, this is no longer the case starting with the Unofficial Patch 1.50, from which computer players can actively engage in sea combat, and will attack under-defended transports if given the chance. In battle, a single Warship can usually take on several smaller ships, or even low- and mid-tier Fantastic Units by itself. In fact, their unique characteristic of being able to use Ranged Attacks throughout an entire battle makes Warships prime candidates for empowering with land movement. There are only two spells in the game that can accomplish this feat though: and . Although it may also be possible for a Wind Walking unit to carry a Warship, this will strip it of its mobility in land battles, rendering it vulnerable to close combat units. , on the other hand, can make Warships incredibly powerful. So much so, that there is even a slow, but still comparably strong 11-Book Strategy centered around this combination, exploiting the Rare spell to increase the Warships' tactical advantage even further. This allows them to take on almost any opposition, with the most notable exceptions being fast-moving, high tier units with Illusions Immunity, enemy spellcasters that can remove the Warships' Unit Enchantments, and opponents which are themselves Invisible. The Realm does offer a solution to two of these problems though. When coupled with , which also affects Warships, allows the vessels to move up to 11 tiles and still fire a double shot in the same round. This lets them evade even the fastest enemy units while still delivering consistent . Alternatively, they can also perform two Ranged Attacks in a single turn this way, although that means they will actually run out of ammunition if the enemy is not destroyed by their 99 shots. To combat enemy dispels, the Warships can be enchanted with , which may also be complemented by to reduce the amount of dispelling attempts it has to withstand. Arguably the biggest problem with this strategy, as well as building Warships in general, is their availablity. The only way to ensure that a Race capable of creating them is present in a game is for the player to start with one. In the latest official version, the higher Difficulty settings actually prohibit the computer opponents from selecting either Barbarians or Orcs as their capital Race, so the Towns they create can only harbor Warships if they happen to be High Men. Even if the player does select an appropriate Race, there is still the issue of the terrain requirements imposed by the prerequisites: it may take a few campaign restarts to get a first City that matches both of them. More commonly though, Warship construction Towns are settled specifically for this purpose. This means that they not only need to satisfy the terrain criteria, but should ideally also have a high Maximum Population to support fast growth, as it takes quite a bit of construction to reach the Maritime Guild - especially if the goal is efficient Production, which usually involves raising some economical buildings as well. Barbarians are at a clear advantage here, as their Cities naturally grow faster. Warships can also benefit greatly from the enhanced quality armaments provided by an Alchemists' Guild and, preferably, a location with Mithril Ore on Arcanus, or Adamantium Ore on Myrror. This can be all the more important considering that are somewhat difficult to improve otherwise, with the only other universal ways of doing so being and the Leadership Hero Ability. In terms of offensive Unit Enchantments, only , , , , and the above mentioned will benefit this Attack Type. Turning the Warship into an Undead unit adds to this list, albeit at quite steep a price if the opponents can use certain spells. Finally, , which always grants the effect to Warships in the official game, also enables them to be affected by and auras, for again a magic vulnerability. Unlike it is with , units carried by a Warship do not get to participate in battles fought over water. They may be possible to bring into the fight by exploiting bugs in the targeting mechanics of the and spells, but they will not be able to move in this scenario, although they can still attack and use spells or abilities, should they have any. Similarly, a Warship left in dry dock in a Town will not show up in combat if that Town comes under siege, even though its crew can still take part in policing the City to reduce Unrest. On the other hand, should a ship be empowered by magic to move over land, but then lose this ability while doing so outside of a settlement, it actually can fight on the map tile it is on, although it will be unable to move during the battle. Ability Overview Ranged Attack x99 * This unit may use a instead of a Melee Attack up to 99 times in each battle. * This is effectively the same as stating that the unit has "unlimited Ranged Attacks", since battles can only last at most 50 turns. Only the spell can allow this unit to fully exploit all of its ammunition. Long Range * This unit can never incur a distance penalty greater than when using its Ranged Attacks. That is, it has no modifier if the target is 1 or 2 tiles away, while it's always otherwise. Experience Table The following table illustrates how a Warship improves with Experience. Any properties that are not listed here are not affected by in any way. * To achieve this level, either the Warlord Retort or the spell must be in play. ** To achieve this level, both Warlord and must be in play simultaneously. Average Damage Output The table below details the average amount of "raw" that a Galley will deliver with each type of attack, based on . It can be used in comparison to the target's Defense rating to approximate the chance of hurting that target. Acquisition Warships may be created for in any Barbarian, High Men, or Orc Town that has a Maritime Guild already built. However, to construct this Town Building in the first place, a settlement must meet two terrain criteria as well. First, it needs immediate access to a Shore tile. Having one in the catchment area is not enough - it must be adjacent to the City on the overland map. This allows the construction of the Shipwrights' Guild, the first structure in the naval building line. Large ships also require an ample supply of timber, represented by the second structure, the Ship Yard, requiring a Sawmill to build. This, in turn, calls for either a regular Forest tile, or a to be present in the catchment area of the Town. Warships can not appear as Mercenaries. Category:Units Category:Normal Units Category:Ships